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That's quite a story and I wasn't aware of it. I'm quite surprised by the following passage: "Jobs never did a lick of engineering in his life. He had me snowe
by 0x12 15y ago
That's quite a story and I wasn't aware of it. I'm quite surprised by the following passage:
"Jobs never did a lick of engineering in his life. He had me snowed," Alcorn later recalled. "It took years before I figured out that he was getting Woz to 'come in the back door' and do all the work while he got the credit."
Jobs convinced Wozniak to work on the game during his day job at Hewlett-Packard, when he was meant to be designing calculators. At night the two would collaborate on building it at Atari: Wozniak as engineer, Jobs as breadboarder and tester.
Allegedly, Jobs told Wozniak that he could have half of a $700 bounty if they were able to get the chip count under 50 (typical games of the day tended to require around 100 chips). After four sleepless days that gave both of them a case of mono (an artificial time limit, it turns out: Jobs had a plane to catch, Atari wasn't in that much of a rush), the brilliantly gifted Wozniak delivered a working board with just 46 chips.
Jobs made good on his promise and gave Wozniak his promised $350. What he didn't tell him -- and what Wozniak didn't find out until several years later -- was that Jobs also pocketed a bonus somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000. Though it's often reported that this caused a rift in their friendship, Wozniak seems to have no hard feelings."
This doesn't diminish Steve Jobs for me (maybe it should, but he was what he was and it's ancient history anyway), but it definitely enhances Steve Wozniak's stature.
- Someone 15y ago"but it definitely enhances Steve Wozniak's stature." Because he worked on a side project during working hours at HP? This is far from an ethical high point for Jobs, but Woz, too, does not come over as a saint.
- keenerd 15y agoAnd the firing squad for jaywalkers! Seriously though, this is something probably the majority of HNers do. Those in the minority probably used to, but got burned when the higher ups found out and either fired them or appropriated the tech.
- CamperBob 15y agoYou need to educate yourself about the HP Way before saying something like that. Hewlett and Packard explicitly wanted their company to serve as a springboard for local talent.
- gjm11 15y agoIt should probably diminish Steve Jobs, but not in quite the obvious way. Not: "SJ did that, and it was bad, so I think worse of him." But: "SJ did that, which shows that he was unusually willing and able to take the credit and the benefits of someone else's work; so my estimate of the share of the credit and benefits he got later in his career should accordingly be reduced."
- sjs 15y agoIn the last 20 years or so Steve Jobs often deflected praise from himself to the teams who worked on products. I have never seen him take any personal credit for any product he has introduced or discussed and always uses terms like "we", e.g. "I'm really excited to show you what we made." Without excusing his behaviour I'd like to remind people here that perhaps we have all acted selfishly or done things we are not proud of when we were younger (high school or college aged).
- adrianwaj 15y agoDid SJ actually bring people up on stage with him, and name them, and point out their roles? How generous was he in this respect?
- thaumaturgy 15y agoDoes the orchestra bow with the conductor?
- adrianwaj 15y agoSJ to me was a conductor, and an arranger and product visionary but a not a full bore composer, inventor or engineer on Mozart's level: more a Scott McNealy with design sense. I never met him, so I don't know how inspired he was in person. The best way I can sum it up, is that Apple may have been evolutionary, but not revolutionary, even though for many people owning one of their products was a revolution. Did Apple invent or just popularize the GUI? Was SJ more a popularizer or more an inventor? This is McNealy's take on Apple and SJ: "Apple is beyond proprietary, and the consumer has no idea that they are checking into the roach motel. Jobs has been brilliant, and he also understands the power of the secret better than anyone I have every seen." (3/10) http://mobile.informationweek.com/10244/show/e0e978f8df836638f534a82cdeac383b http://mobile.informationweek.com/10244/show/e0e978f8df83663... -- the conductor bows to audience with orchestra, and applauds orchestra as well.
- cubicle67 15y agoYou really need to read iWoz, his biography. It's got a heap of similarly great stories and is told in Woz' characteristic humble way
- div 15y agoAlmost every time I read a story about the two Steves, it feels like their relationship was unbalanced. Woz always comes out as the brilliant engineer who gets played by management to lay golden eggs for nearly free. I haven't read iWoz, and I doubt Woz himself feels this way about it, but these stories just have a way of coming across that way.
- enjo 15y agoI think that's part of Woz's mystique. He's the brilliant hacker who just likes solving problems. It fits in with the story that Woz originally offered the Apple 1 to Hewlett Packard as he thought they should have first crack at it.... that's just who he is. I think he's just fine being seen that way:)
- city41 15y agoAfter reading iWoz, I both felt sorry and impressed by Woz at the same time. He's got a very interesting outlook on life.
- s3graham 15y agoI expect that, monetarily, things worked out just fine for him.
- mikeash 15y agoWoz is worth $100 million, as far as I know all due to his role in Apple, despite not having done any work for the company in about 25 years. I'd say that's pretty far from "nearly free". He may well have gotten shafted a few times, but the end result seems to have come out well.
- techdmn 15y agoIt makes me think less of him, the guy screwed his best friend. In the same way there's a story about Gates refusing to pay the secretaries overtime when Microsoft was getting started.[1] Somehow that bothers me more than all the anti-trust stuff later. (Possibly due to similar personal experience.) [1] http://books.google.com/books?id=XdYOGBhp0SAC&lpg=PA163&ots=fBjZLstnE5&dq=Bill%20Gates%20overtime%20secretaries&pg=PA162#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=XdYOGBhp0SAC&lpg=PA163&...
- technoslut 15y ago>It makes me think less of him, the guy screwed his best friend. None of these people are saints. At the time Jobs was essentially a kid. If you dig deep on any person you will find things that will disappoint you. We are human and destined to be flawed. One, or even a few moments, do not sum up a man's life. You must take it in its entirety. Even then, you have to also understand that every decision or path we take will define us, one way or the other. Ask yourself, is there an Apple without Jobs or Woz? If no, then they were mutually beneficial to each other. In the end both Woz and Jobs have come out with a more significant life than if they had never met.
- 0x12 15y agoNobody has to be a saint, but there is something very uncomfortable about putting one over on a friend like that.
- mechanical_fish 15y agoThere are lots of stories about Woz and Jobs that make me uncomfortable. But that's not surprising: They were big fans of practical jokes, and I was never much of a fan myself. Woz seems to be able to think of this story in the spirit of a practical joke.
- technoslut 15y agoIt is, as you put it, uncomfortable. This goes to other things that Jobs has done as well in his youth. If I was to put the magnifying lens under your life, or anyone else's, I can assure you I would find things you don't want to be seen. No one is perfect. The best we can do is make the world a better place than it was before. I believe that both Jobs and Woz did that. If you don't like what he has done then be a better person. Learn from his mistakes, as well as the triumphs, and pay it forward. Jobs is a hero to many but he is not worthy of worship.
- 16s 15y agoWoz seemed to take it really well. He said that he didn’t care about the money and would have done it for free. Steve was nice to him and Woz was having fun. Some might say that Steve took advantage of Woz (and that's probably true) but all in all they got along.
- noonespecial 15y agoEvery one who's ever treated me (or others I've been around) this way has failed miserably, mostly due to this type of character flaw. What this says to me is that Steve grew out of this just in time and with a little luck and a lot of self improvement, became better. Good on him.